“Just a few rolls. The customs man wanted to know if I was opening a store here.”
“He probably wanted you to give him some.”
“I thought so, but I didn’t know if I’d need it. I’ll give it to him on the way back.” They chatted easily with each other, he seemed very relaxed and comfortable with her.
“Where do you live now?” he asked, curious about her.
“That’s an interesting question. I’m homeless at the moment. I just sold my house in L.A., it’s closing this week. And since we’re based in London, I haven’t bought anything to replace it yet. I can stay at a hotel or the ranch when I go back, though it’s a long drive from L.A. I’ll probably buy an apartment in Hollywood or Beverly Hills. The house was a big commitment. I loved it, but I think selling was the right thing.”
“You can buy a flat in London, or rent one.” She nodded. She hadn’t figured that out yet, and was going to look around when they got to London in February. They had rented an apartment for her until they finished shooting for the first season in May, so she had time to decide what she wanted to do. “I have a flat in Notting Hill. It’s a bit chaotic, like the Left Bank in Paris. I like that. I’m not so fond of stuffy neighborhoods. L.A. always looks a bit too grand to me when I get invited to people’s homes. They look so perfect. I always want to mess them up a bit so they look lived in.” She laughed. He was fun to talk to. “I think you’ll enjoy the cast, by the way. They’re a good mix of British types, a bit slutty, a bit naughty, some of the older actors take themselves quite seriously. We have a resident curmudgeon. And Natalie Jones, our star, is a really sweet girl, who loves everyone. She reminds me of my daughter, innocence itself. She works for a fashion magazine. My son is very serious. He’s a biologist. I have no idea what he does. He’s explained it to me a thousand times. It’s all Chinese to me. He’s an assistant professor at Cambridge. I can’t imagine how I wound up with a boy that smart. Must be in his mother’s genes, though she can’t figure out what he does either. Half the time, she says he’s a pharmacist, which drives him insane to have two such ignorant parents. He thinks I’m a terrible Bohemian. He’s engaged to the daughter of an earl, and hides me whenever possible. His mother is a countess now, so she’s considered respectable.” He said it all with good humor, and had Gemma laughing for most of the short trip.
“You seem very respectable to me,” Gemma said, smiling, as they each ate one of the sandwiches.
“I’m not at all respectable. That’s only because you grew up on a ranch in America. By British standards, I’m a total outlaw. What about your mother? What was she like?”
“I was born in Texas, and she left when I was two, so we moved to California a year later. I never met her until this summer after my father died. He told us that she was dead, and we found out after he died that she wasn’t. So we looked her up on the internet and found her. She’s lovely actually. She lives with an Italian architect. So I didn’t have a mother until I was forty-one.”
“That must have been awkward, when you met her.” He frowned sympathetically, thinking about it, and glanced at her.
“It wasn’t really. Emotional, but not awkward. She’s a very sweet woman. She ran off with another man and my father never forgave her, so he told us she was dead, and we were young enough to believe him. My younger sister was a baby, and my older sister and I were two and three when she left. And when I was three, we moved away. We were all babies really.”
“Your father just took you and moved to California? Brave man.”
“Yes, and complicated.”
“Of course, who isn’t?” He had a point. “That’s what’s so interesting about what you and I do. I direct actors to express emotion and pull it out of their souls, and imagine it. You try to connect with the material at an emotional level, and apply something you’ve experienced to what you’re doing and channel it for the viewer. It’s magic really.” It was an intriguing way to describe it. “What you do is a pantomime of emotion really for people who want to feel and don’t know how to, or don’t know what they should be feeling, so you show them, and I tell you how to show them. It all fits together rather nicely. Like Kabuki.
“I lived in Japan for a year too. Fascinating people, gorgeous place. A little too foreign for me, though. And very repressed. It’s important there not to show emotion. That doesn’t work for me. Of course the British would like to be like that too. They’re very proud of how cold they are, but they aren’t really. I have them crying like babies with our shows,” he said, looking pleased. She could hardly wait to work with him and see what it was like. “My son is very British. My daughter is more like me. She’s an artist, when she’s not working at the magazine. I thought she’d want to become an actress, but she didn’t.”
“My father loved that I’m an actress.”
“Of course, you can express everything he couldn’t.” She had never thought of it that way and wondered if it was true.
As they approached Victoria Falls, which he pointed out to her from the air, he told her some things about the scenes they would be shooting, and the place where they were staying, and by the time they had exchanged histories, and eaten the sandwiches, they landed at a small airport, where a Land Rover was waiting for them, and a truck for her bags and the supplies he had picked up in Harare that morning. They were on their way to the camp twenty minutes later, once everything was loaded. Rufus drove her himself in the Land Rover, at first on tar roads, and then on gravel as they bumped along.
It took them just under an hour to reach the camp, where natives in starched white uniforms waited to serve the guests, sitting on wide porches with tables and chairs, drinking and eating. There were several buildings where the rooms were, and a cluster of tents. It looked more like a luxury hotel than a camp, which Gemma was relieved to see, and there was a fleet of vehicles they used to drive out among the animals. It was safari at its cleanest, safest, and most pristine. Many tourists preferred more rugged conditions in remoter areas, Rufus commented, but he knew his cast wouldn’t.
“Not too bad, eh?” He smiled at her as he turned off the engine and half a dozen men in white uniforms ran toward them to assist them from the car. Her bags were already disappearing into the main building on the heads of porters.
“Thank you so much for driving me,” she said warmly, “and coming to Harare.”
“I wanted to get to know you a bit better before we start working together. You’re a very interesting woman,” he said appreciatively. And she thought he was fascinating with his boyhood and his background, his parents and his children, and the places he had lived, and all that he understood about their trade, and the artistry behind it. “Dinner with the cast at eight tonight. Jeans, long-sleeve shirt, boots, and insect repellent. No toilet paper needed,” he instructed her and she laughed.
“I’ll leave it in my room.”
He gave directions to the head man of the fleet of porters and runners, and then with a wave he disappeared into the hotel. The manager of the camp appeared to walk her to her room, up a flight of stairs. When they walked in, she saw an enormous room, with a huge fan overhead circling lazily. Two women in bare feet and uniforms were already starting to unpack her bags. She peeked into the bathroom and it had a toilet, a sink, and a tub, and she was relieved. She suspected that their accommodations cost a fortune, but she was glad they weren’t primitive. If she was going to shoot on location in Africa, this was the way to do it. It was not a real safari, but Rufus had promised that the animals they’d see would be extraordinary.
The two women unpacked her bags, put everything away neatly, and ran a tub for her. They brought her a cup of tea, watercress and cucumber sandwiches, and English biscuits on a silver tray. She wasn’t hungry but ate one of the delicious sandwiches anyway, and lay down on the bed to relax for a while, after the long trip. She fell asleep, and a discreet knocking at her door woke he
r in time to bathe and dress for dinner.
When she came downstairs, she wore exactly what Rufus had suggested. There were about twenty-five or thirty people milling around, a combination of cast and crew. Rufus stepped forward to introduce her to everyone and there were some very famous British actors in the group, whom she recognized immediately. Her co-star was exactly what he had said, a really sweet, warm, naïve girl, who looked awestruck when she saw Gemma and said she had watched her show with her mother every week.
Rufus’s production company had taken over the whole hotel. Gemma was seated at a table with the cast, next to Rufus. There were about a dozen of them. The other fifteen or so were crew and sat together. These initial days were a kind of orientation for all of them, to meet and get to know each other. Scripts were handed out at the end of dinner to begin studying. Gemma couldn’t wait to get to her room and read it. And at the end of dinner, the entire cast bid each other a very formal good night and disappeared. They weren’t a family yet, as they had been on her other show. But with Rufus in charge, pulling their emotions straight out of their souls, she was sure they would be soon. In the meantime, she had had a very good day, getting to know him. She could hardly wait for their African adventure to start. Being there was the most exotic experience of her life. And meeting Rufus and working with him was a privilege. He felt the same way about her.
Chapter 15
Caroline planned to spend Christmas with her children, as she always did. The difference this year was that Peter wouldn’t be with them. They had tried to work out an equitable arrangement, and Caroline had been generous with him. Their school vacation had started on the nineteenth, they were spending the first week with her, and Christmas Eve, and Peter was picking them up on the morning of Christmas Day, taking them skiing after he celebrated Christmas with them. He was to return them to their mother on New Year’s Eve.
Caroline had thought about taking them somewhere before Christmas, but they wanted to stay home and see their friends, and they were going skiing in Squaw Valley with Peter, so it seemed superfluous to make them go away with her. The ranch was bleak and depressing that time of year, so she didn’t press them to go there either. And so far, they were weathering the new arrangements surprisingly well. She and Peter alternated weekends, when it worked for the kids. And during the week, he could take them out to dinner or they could spend the night with him whenever they wanted to. They both tried to make it as easy as possible for the kids. They were worried, but not panicked yet. And their grades hadn’t slipped. Billy asked his mother frequently how things were going with Dad. Nothing much had changed since September.
Caroline had decided to stay home herself from Christmas Day until they returned to her six days later. She didn’t mind being at home at Christmas, and she could catch up on projects in the house, and do some writing. She had a manuscript for one of her young adult books that she wanted to finish. She had started it that summer, at the ranch, and hadn’t turned it in yet. It was about a thirteen-year-old orphan and the family who adopts her, and how she changes them.
Peter had been reliable about seeing the children every other weekend, but Billy’s sports and extra classes and Morgan’s plans with friends made it complicated, so Caroline had been generous about the holidays, to make up for any time he’d missed. She didn’t want to use their children to penalize him, which he appreciated.
She and Peter hadn’t had lunch or dinner together again. She didn’t want to, and he could sense that, so she didn’t encourage it, and he didn’t push. He was pleasant when they spoke and so was she, but she still felt cautious about spending time with him. He didn’t want to intrude on her so he waited for the kids in the car when he picked them up. He had literally not set foot in their house since June. Caroline felt like it was her home now, after he had violated it, so she didn’t invite him in. And she saw their friends on her own. Word had gotten out after the summer that they were separated. It worried her that with separate social lives, they seemed to be drifting further apart, rather than back together. Caroline had promised herself that she was going to broach the subject with him again after New Year’s. By December, she had made her decision about a divorce, but didn’t want to tell him before Christmas and ruin the holidays for him or the children. It had been six months since she’d discovered his affair. She wasn’t angry anymore, or devastated, but she didn’t feel any closer to him either. She was convinced now that the damage was irreparable.
Caroline made their traditional turkey dinner on Christmas Eve and she, Morgan, and Billy ate in the dining room, on their best china, with good crystal and silver, with a tablecloth and a centerpiece of poinsettias. She used the same decorations they always did. They put up a tree together a week before Christmas, and made an outing of buying it. She put Christmas carols on their stereo system while they put the ornaments on the tree. Everything was the same, except it was all different. Without Peter, there was a hollow feeling to it, like a bell with no ringer.
He had told her that he wasn’t decorating for Christmas, or getting a tree. His apartment was too small, and they were leaving for Tahoe on the afternoon of Christmas, so there was no point buying a miniature tree, since they were celebrating it with their mother on Christmas Eve. And the kids said they were fine with it.
They exchanged presents under the tree after dinner, and Billy screamed when he saw the new version of PlayStation from his mother, and the games to go with it. He had wanted a video camera desperately, which she had gotten him, and an iPad because his had been stolen at soccer practice. She’d bought him a new ski jacket to wear when he went away with his father. He had outgrown everything from the year before. And Peter had promised him new skis and boots and a “cool” helmet. Morgan was always easier because she wanted clothes. She had just turned sixteen and had given her mother a list of purses, shoes, skirts, sweaters, and a million other small things, and makeup, and she needed a new laptop, and Caroline got her the latest one. Peter was getting her the new cellphone she wanted, and new ski equipment too. So they had Christmas covered. Caroline had decided not to buy Peter a gift, and then two days before Christmas she felt guilty when she saw a sweater she knew he’d love. It was a black cashmere turtleneck he could wear skiing or on weekends. She bought it for him and wrapped it, and put it under the tree. Morgan noticed it immediately.
“You bought Dad a present?” She looked pleased and took it as a good sign.
“Yeah, I did.” She felt stupid doing it, and didn’t want to mislead him into thinking she felt differently. She didn’t. But Christmas was a special time, and she felt mean not including him in the goodwill of Christmas.
“That was nice of you, Mom.” Caroline didn’t expect a present from him, and didn’t want one.
After they opened their gifts, they went to midnight mass at the same church they always went to. They sang Christmas carols, and then went home. She made a fire the way Peter used to, and was surprised by how many things she was able to do without him. She was managing nicely on her own.
Eventually she sent the kids to bed since they were getting up early. They were half asleep when she went to kiss them good night, and they thanked her for a nice Christmas. She kissed them, and left the room, and went to sit in front of the fire, thinking of the past year.
It had been a year of difficult changes, losing her father, discovering that their mother was alive and he had lied to them, all hell breaking loose with Peter and their marriage falling apart. At first, she had felt like only half a person, but she was starting to feel whole again. She was lonely at times, and sometimes she missed him and the good times they’d had, but she had discovered she could function without him. She felt ready to face a divorce if she had to, and a new life on her own. After six months, it seemed like time to do something about a divorce. She had talked to Kate about it, and their mother. She just couldn’t seem to forgive him, and had begun to believe she never woul
d. He had broken what they had, that ephemeral bubble of love and trust that one could destroy so easily, and he had. She couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together, and more important, she still didn’t want to. She was comfortable the way things were now.
She sat thinking about it in the living room until the fire went out, and then she turned off the tree lights, and went to bed in her new yellow bedroom that was all floral chintzes, with a beautiful headboard on her new bed, and a canopy. The furniture was white, and it looked like a sunny summer day every time she walked through it, and it made her happy looking at it. It had been worth every penny she’d spent on it. She had bought it with royalties from her books. She had put in pale yellow carpeting, moved the bed to a different place, and put built-in drawers in the closet. She bought a beautiful antique desk to work on, and a big, comfortable chair covered in the floral fabric, and a fabulous new TV. It was fancier than any other room in the house, and the next best thing to an exorcism.
She woke the children at eight, wished them a Merry Christmas and kissed them, and went to make them breakfast while they dressed. Peter was due to pick them up at nine, and take them back to the city. He said they would leave for Squaw around lunchtime. He had it all organized.
She made them pancakes, which was their favorite breakfast, and they grumbled about having to get up so early. Billy was playing games on his new iPad when Peter rang the bell after waiting outside for ten minutes. She went to the door and he looked handsome in his ski clothes. He was dressed for their trip.
“Hi. Merry Christmas,” she said, smiling at him. “They’re ready, they’re just slow eating breakfast. They’re all packed.” They had become experts at handing them off to each other, and were always punctual and respected each other’s schedules, unlike many divorced parents who showed up early or late just to annoy each other, and wound up stressing the children even more than themselves. They were careful not to do that.
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